


Scortch Me, Ruin Me (This is All We Have)

by i_wont_fall_asleep



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Cutting, Eating Disorder, M/M, Sexual Content, Trigger Warnings, mutual domestic abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-11
Updated: 2013-07-11
Packaged: 2017-12-19 03:44:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/879036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_wont_fall_asleep/pseuds/i_wont_fall_asleep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of two boys who were encompassingly, maddingly, dangerously in love with each other. A love that stole, that destroyed, that ruined both. It wasn’t perfect and it wasn’t beautiful, but it was theirs, and it was all they had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scortch Me, Ruin Me (This is All We Have)

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings for eating disorders, abuse, and self harm. The opinions of these characters are not mine nor do I own anything related to One Direction.

Most children, when they are young their minds are impressed upon with the sugary sweet notions of Disney-like true love and soul mates. They dream of their perfect person, the idyllic height and eye colour, their character traits and even the flaws they’ll help them overcome-with love,  _of course_. They plan the perfect wedding; arches intertwined with flowers and elaborate white cake and the knowledge of belonging solely with someone forever.

Even that term, forever. It seems so sound, so reasonable, so incredibly attainable to children. Forever is promised to them, just as a perfect love is-even if those promising it, have absolutely no right to, because they, as adults, understand just how stupid and foolish it is.

Harry Styles, as a young, curly-headed cherub was no exception. He imagined his perfect soul mate (some days it was a pretty girl with bright green eyes like his and brown hair or it was a handsome young man with sparkling blue eyes and rich black hair-he was too young to understand the concept of sexuality), how many children they would have (at least three, hopefully a little boy and two little girls), and of course the wedding (a small affair, on his favourite beach, with yellow and white flowers mixed with soft purple ones). Harry had been a romantic from the second he could understand emotions and continued even as a young adult. He felt a deep, drawing pull within him to love, to love with everything he had, like an engulfing inferno inside him.

But the thing about fires that blaze so powerfully, so utterly, is that eventually they eat up all the oxygen in the attempt to feed itself, and ultimately they extinguish themselves.

 

***

Harry awoke to the shining morning light in his eyes, peering from behind dirty, broken blinds. He ached deeply, down past his paled, tight skin that felt itchy and stretched too thin, down past his underused, decaying, stringy muscles, down past his weakened, crumbling bones. It was a dull thudding sort of pain that didn’t limit itself to his physical being, but impossibly further into his heart, his very soul.

He presses a thinned, bony hand to his chest and felt the dull, listless thumping of his heartbeat which once so vital and alive, proof of his youth, now betrayed his age-only a young eighteen-into that of a barely-there ghost.

The heartbeat, although feeble and pathetic, rhythmically beat on in the same pulse of the warm body next to him in the crumpled, dirty sheets. It was as if the two boys were linked together through a single thrum, but it wasn’t romantic or ideal because how can two people possibly thrive on one heart alone?

But it was what they had and Harry, for some reason he couldn’t understand, never wanted it to change.

Because he was in completely in love but not in the way they say you will, because no one ever mentions how much it hurts, no one explains how it is even feasible to hate that person with the same passion as he loving him.

The very object of his hate/love begins to stir into consciousness, rolling onto his side to stare up with his brilliant blue eyes slightly unfocused from sleep and perhaps something else, if the tourniquet and syringe lying on their bedside table is anything to go by-and it is, for both of them, so honestly, Harry’s not judging.

“Hey babe.” Louis croaks out, his voice unused from however long they dually passed out for, after a bender.

“Hey love.” Harry leans down to peck his lips, morning breath be utterly damned and he feels the cracking, rough chapped mouth of Louis’ on his and it sounds terrible and it is but it seems that with them, with the whole fucked-up black hole that is HarryandLouis, Harry seems to simultaneously worship and be disgusted by everything that is them.

“I missed you.” To anyone else this might be absurd, the two haven’t left each other’s side in most likely a week and are currently curled up as closely as two can be (Harry doesn’t use cuddle because it is too soft, too sweet and him and Louis have never been like that. It is more of a smother, equally awful and wonderful from both participants) but with them it has always been  _closerclosercloser_  and  _moremoremore_ in ways that are never satisfied and never reasonable.

Harry may feel trapped by their love but he knows he holds the keys to his binds, (but no one ever told him he would fall apart to tiny pieces without those insufferable chains.)

“I always miss you, Lou. Do you want something to eat?” Harry asks hopefully, holding his breath.

But Louis shakes his head no, “’m not hungry.”

And suddenly Harry is settled with a profound rage, pushing himself away and standing in the corner of the room, “Louis you can’t just fucking waste away.”

Louis sits up, an irritated scowl marring his lovely, pixie-like features, “I’m not exactly wasting away, my fat could feed all the starving people in England.” To make his point, his pulls at his fat, which is plainly nonexistent.

“Jesus Christ, you are not fat, you have never been fat. Why can’t you get that through your fucking head?” Harry is seething (he knows he isn’t being helpful or supportive or anything a healthy partner would be but on a list of things he and Louis are, healthy isn’t one of them).

“It’s not like that. You don’t understand.” Louis whispers, silent tears pooling in his eyes.

“Then fucking explain it to me. Take me step by step on how you can be so damn weak.” Harry doesn’t really think he’s weak (except he does) but rather one of the strongest people he’s ever met (except he’s not) but again, Harry never has been able to understand fully how he can despise and revere Louis so wholly on both sides.

Louis’ head snaps up and suddenly standing in front of him, pushing his chest sharply and nearly screeching, “Don’t you fucking dare talk to me about weakness, Styles! Don’t think I don’t notice all those pitiful little scratches on your arms,” Louis notices Harry paling and a strange, sadistic power fills him, “how someone can be so pathetic and small to slice open their own skin, that is what is baffling. You are such a goddamn coward. You sicken me.”

Harry reels forward and punches Louis straight in the face and it starts a scuffle that is not gentle but boiling and frothing with anger and hurt and hatred.

It finally ends with each of them in a different corner, Louis’ face bloody and beginning to bruise and Harry’s clothes torn and his cheek bleeding from Louis’ nails. This isn’t the first time the boys have fought; their fading bruises and scratches proof, hospital reports of them showing up in the middle of the night, sporting black eyes and bruised bones.

The doctors stopped asking questions long ago once they realized they were never going to get the truth because when it came down to it, the two boys always covered for one another. (If you asked Harry why-and many people used to-he would shake his head ruefully and say, “I love him” as if that was some acceptable excuse. It wasn’t. But it was all he had.)

“I’m going out. Don’t fucking wait up, psycho.” Harry picks up his jacket as he strides through disgustingly messy flat, slamming the door as he leaves.

“Wanker!” Louis screeches, but his fire is gone and he slumps in defeat on the dirty sheets, tears rolling rapidly down his sore face.

This isn’t the first time Harry has stormed out of their flat  _sososo_  angry, and Louis knows exactly where he’ll be. He knows those sweet, sinfully long legs will take him down to an apartment much nicer, much cleaner, much better than theirs. His gangly, tattooed arms will tangle with someone much kinder, much softer, much better than Louis. His pink, plump lips with kiss someone much thinner, much healthier, much better than Louis could ever dream to be.

An aching sob rips and shreds Louis’ chest, his lungs collapsing, his heart stopping, his ribs cracking.

No one ever tells you that loving someone the way he loved Harry had the terrible capability to kill you, over and over again, only to revive you once more to mercilessly stab you in the heart again.

Sickness churns within his stomach and he lurches toward the bathroom, spilling empty bile into the filthy toilet. After he finishes he forces himself to throw up twice more, for good measure, as he stares with disgust and hatred at his reflection.

Before him and Harry became so destructive, before the band had finally had enough and broke up, before that fateful moment on XFactor, before all of that Louis had never loved himself. He couldn’t remember a time when he looked into the mirror and felt content, felt happiness. He stopped being a person long ago; now a mere image of a human concealing the ugly, stupid, burdensome monster that he is.

Louis was just a long list of never good enough. But when he and Harry were so young, so naïve, back all that time ago in that bungalow, he let himself believe that he could fix him, that he could be whole. But then the fame sped out of control, the hate got harder to deal with and Harry’s easy-going, naturally-cheerful demeanour began to grate against Louis until slowly he saw himself destroy those parts of him, until Harry was as warped and desperate as him. The drugs helped deal with the revulsion they came to see in each other’s eyes more often than not and the drinking helped the hideous, venomous words not to matter and cut as deep.

He wished he could regret meeting Harry, for ruining each other, but he loved him.

And that’s what it always came back to, didn’t it?

Louis, weak from forcing his body to discard what he wasn’t giving it anymore, wobbled over to their bed, and curled up and fell into an empty sleep.

***

Harry stumbled into the apartment around four in the morning, completely pissed. He stank of cheap alcohol and was noisy, rousing Louis from his slumber.

“Where have you been?” the groggy boy whispers, knowing, but still needing to ask.

Harry stops and swallows, “Erm…”

“Where the fuck were you, Harry?”

“At Nick’s.” and that stings because he knows, he  _knows_  how much it burns Louis when he goes to him.

“Did you fuck him?” this question shouldn’t be as familiar as it is to him.

Harry shakes his head, “No, but he sucked me off.” And the sigh of relief that Louis lets out is so pathetic, so ridiculous but it’s honest.

It’s silent and they know what they’re thinking because they’ve always been able to read each other better than anyone else:

_I should just leave._

_(Please stay.)_

_You broke me._

_(I’m not whole without you.)_

_I hate you._

_(I love you.)_

“Lou…” Harry murmurs and now they’re both crying and hugging and it’s shameful how much they need each other.

Louis is curling up against Harry’s lengthy frame, clutching desperately to him, his lips kissing every centimeter of his pale face, Harry equally as frantic, melding his body against Louis’ perfect curves, pushing him into the bed and rolling on top of him.

“I’m so sorry, Louis. I love you so fucking much. I love you more than anything I’ve ever loved. If the whole world burned down around me, you would be the one I would look for in the ashes. I need you, please, please.” His deep voice cracking and watery.

“Shhh, love, calm down. It’s okay, I promise.” It wasn’t remotely even close to anything resembling okay, but this is what they had, “I love you, too.”

Louis surged up and they kissed with a fierce, painful passion, teeth clashing, and lips tearing and it was salty and terrible but it’s what they needed.

Their clothes came off and the darkness of the room was sliced through with the soft beams of moonlight breaking through the windows.

Harry kissed bruising trails along Louis’ body, scalding “beautiful” and “perfect” into the soft flesh. And in those moments, he believes it, because Harry has always had a way of making him feel desirable, wanted, needed.

(Afterwards, the creeping darkness of his self-loathing would settle around him once more, but for now, it was enough.)

“Harry please, babe, please fuck me.” Louis whined, his voice hoarse and his eyes pleading.

Harry moaned and slicked himself up with the lube he found on the floor, not bothering with a condom-it wasn’t healthy or safe, considering how much they both screwed around on each other but he needed to make Louis his, and safety was never really part of their relationship, anyways.

He pushes himself in and hold’s Louis tightly as he adjusts to the feeling.

“Move, please.” And Harry does, slow, dragging thrusts that turn into a deep, forceful slamming that makes the man underneath him clutch tighter to him when he finally hits this prostate.

“Oh God, harder, please, please, please.” His nails now scratching down Harry’s lean back, marking him, letting everyone know he always came back to his bed.

They kiss deeply and Louis comes, with Harry following right after, and in moments like this, the single heartbeat doesn’t seem so damning. It actually is good, better than good, it’s perfect. It’s them and it’s all they’ve ever needed, all they’ll ever need. Because sure, it’s not healthy, and ugly, and not normal but what’s normal? It’s what they have and tomorrow morning, Louis still won’t eat and Harry will still open his skin with that silver blade but they have each other and maybe that’s all that matters.

They disentangle but still remain close, their breathing ragged, their skin sticky, and their hearts thumping erratically.

“I love you forever, Louis.”

“I love you for always, Harry.”

And as they fall asleep, Harry thinks that forever isn’t realistic and isn’t promised to anyone. He knows that most of the time they’re shouting ‘I hate you’ at one another but with them, hate has somehow always been synonymous with ‘love’. He understands that what they have is wrong, agonizing, blazing.

But if he got to choose who to scorch him, who became his undoing until all that remained was smoldering ashes and charred bits of himself, Harry would choose Louis every damn time.


End file.
